River City: When Past Becomes Prologue and The Three Amigos

UPDATE: Former RPD Officer Anthony Fletcher convicted on multiple counts of child molestation by a jury, according to sources





HONORABLE BERNARD J. SCHWARTZ PRESIDING.
COURTROOM ASSISTANT: ELP-E. PIERCE
COURT REPORTER: DRR-D. RODRIGUEZ
PEOPLE REPRESENTED BY DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: MIKE CARNEY.
DEFENDANT REPRESENTED BY PVT-CHAD FIRETAG.
DEFENDANT PRESENT.
JURY RETIRES AT 10:00 TO RESUME DELIBERATIONS.
AT 10:40 JURY RETURNS WITH A VERDICT.
AT 11:15, THE FOLLOWING PROCEEDINGS WERE HELD:
JURY PRESENT IN COURT.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 001 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 288(C)(1) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 002 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 288(C)(1) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 003 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 288(C)(1) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 004 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 647.6(A) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 005 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 647.6(A) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
WE THE JURY IN THE ABOVE ENTITLED ACTION, FIND THE DEFT. ANTHONY WAYNE FLETCHER, GUILTY, IN COUNT 006 OF A VIOLATION OF SECTION 647.6(A) PC.
DATED: 10/18/2010, AND SIGNED BY: # 1 JURY FOREPERSON.
JURORS ARE POLLED ON THE VERDICT(S) AND ALL JURORS ANSWER IN THE AFFIRMATIVE.
RE-READING OF THE VERDICT(S) AS RECORDED IS WAIVED
COURT INSTRUCTS THE JURY.
JURORS ARE THANKED AND EXCUSED.
CURRENT BAIL BOND CONTINUED.
REPORT AND SENTENCE HEARING SET ON 12/03/2010 AT 10:00 IN DEPT. 08.
DEFENDANT WAIVES TIME FOR SENTENCING.
AT 13:30, THE FOLLOWING PROCEEDINGS WERE HELD:
COURT AND COUNSEL CONFER REGARDING: 1203.067 REFERRAL
HEARING SET RE: FURTHER PROCEEDINGS/1203.067 ON 11/04/2010 AT 9:30 IN DEPT. 08.
COURT APPOINTS DR. CRAIG RATH TO EXAMINE DEFENDANT, PURS. TO 288.1 AND FURNISH WRITTEN REPORT TO COURT ON OR BEFORE 12/04/2010.
COURT REQUESTS THAT DOCTOR(S) ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF 288.1 PC.
RETURN OF DOCTOR'S REPORT IS SET 12/03/2010 AT 10:00 IN DEPARTMENT 08.
DEFENDANT ORDERED TO RETURN ON ANY AND ALL FUTURE HEARING DATES.
REFERRED TO PROBATION DEPARTMENT FOR FULL PRE-SENTENCE REPORT.
DEFENDANT ORDERED TO RETURN ON ANY AND ALL FUTURE HEARING DATES.
**MINUTE ORDER OF COURT PROCEEDING**




The Strategic Plan Comes to the Eastside....

[Residents of Riverside and officers attended the Strategic Plan forum in the Eastside including Sgt. Christian Dinco (center) who supervises the investigations in NPC East]






[Sgt. Jaybee Brennan who worked on the original draft of the Strategic Plan presents the results from the community online survey. She was originally the only one omitted in the introductions made of the department employees but someone remembered later.]





[Chief Sergio Diaz, Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer and Asst. Chief Chris Vicino (The Three Amigos, interesting moniker borrowed) attended the community forum to solicit input from those who attended.]




A group of city residents showed up at the Caesar Chavez Community Center at Bobby Bonds Park in the Eastside on Oct. 14 to listen to a presentation on the Strategic Plan themes and public survey results as well as provide some input into the second round of eight community forums which will take place this month to solicit similar input from the city's four Neighborhood Policing Centers.


Hosting was East NPC Area Commander Lt. Vic Williams along with Asst. Chief Chris Vicino, Chief Sergio Diaz and Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer. All three management team members began working for the police department after June 30. Originally it appears that Diaz hadn't planned on coming but it was very good that he did because the best way to show commitment for this process is to be there to witness it. It's ironic though that city residents have seen these three gentlemen more times than the typical police officer or civilian employee in the department (but it's been good that they've been out there in the public in different places) but it was an opportunity to see them interact together for the first time and it was quite interesting.


Attending also were Sgt. Christian Dinco, who supervises investigations in the East NPC, Officer James Barette, who works in the Vice unit, Lt. Dan Hoxmeier, the area commander of Central NPC and Lt. Steve Johnson, area commander of West NPC. Nancy Castillo, the East NPC's Community Service Representative also attended and talked to city residents.

Members of the management team introduced the department employees one by one...except for one.

And that was Sgt. Jaybee Brennan who as a former member of the now defunct Audit and Compliance Panel had been assigned to work on the Strategic Plan for a considerable period of time and had organized and ran the original community forums earlier this year. She and other officers had attended and led the forum breakout groups to help solicit input and also to write and collect information on the online survey, the results of which were detailed at the forum. It was ironic that the person who spent the most hours on working on the development of the Plan toted at the forum wasn't introduced except sometime later on almost as an afterthought.

But then again, most women in leadership positions have been there, done that, got the tee-shirt in every profession from business to law to medicine so it's something that's part of the universal experience of professional women. Still, it's hard to come across as concerned on issues of diversity if you can't even remember the female officer standing right next to you until she is needed to do a presentation to the public that only she can give, not the male management team.

There's words, and then there's actions and which speak louder especially in front of the public?

Although later on, another officer did show up who wasn't introduced either.

That was Sgt. Christian Dinco who was dressed in a suit and wasn't introduced either but when told they skipped over him for input, a little bit of confusion at the front of the room while most of the people in the back laughed, knowing him. Still he wasn't introduced at that point whether it was because they knew his name or not, that wasn't clear. He's been with the department quite a few years now, worked many assignments and had served many years on the board of the Riverside Police Officers' Association until recently. I knew who he was (even without the mustache) when I made that comment. I wanted to see if the management team did. Provided a perfect opportunity for them to introduce him and none of them did that even though they're "for the troops".


The members of this management team, all of whom started working after July 1 said they were there to try to get input from different communities to integrate into the themes already developed for the Strategic Plan which included issues of traffic enforcement and education, honoring diversity, safer neighborhoods and management accountability and training.


They finally remembered Brennan when they needed her to do something for them that only she could do, like present the history of the development of the Strategic Plan and the solicitation of input from the public. That's very typical of showing just exactly how important a female employee is by those in management. It's just one of those "click" moments for the fairer gender when we see it.

And there was some great input but at times, it seems like the more department management old or new says it wants the community to do the talking, the more talking the management personnel do instead. They ask questions about what the community wants, likes, dislikes, views as departmental strengths and weaknesses which is good but then they try to answer the questions for the community members. New folks in the dynamic called the Riverside Police Department but this is an older pattern that goes back long before these three men arrived. They want public feedback but only to a point. After all, at least in the first round of public forums, the residents who participated were asked to come up with possible answers to the questions, solutions to some of the problems raised. Ideas on how to build up the strengths and how to improve on the weaknesses, not just naming them so that someone else could find a way to rewrite what they said and them implement something entirely different than the concern raised.

This time, it's hi, what's the strengths and weaknesses and bye. Take a cookie when you leave. That's why so many of the city's residents in the city's different communities haven't been showing up, that and other conflicts of time, energy and obligations in their lives. It's difficult enough when veteran management personnel ran these kinds of programs but when completely spanking new management personnel do it, they stay away because they don't know these folks. It's ironic for this talk of not rehashing history by people who don't know it, that they rehash this unfortunate dynamic instead as if someone gave them a performance manual. Or maybe that's what is done in other agencies besides Riverside and is some sort of industry standard.

A former deputy chief once took me to lunch at a really nice restaurant at the Mission Inn to ask me why residents in one of the city's communities hadn't improved their relations with the police officers in the past 10 years. He said these are new officers who don't know these folks and can't understand why they view them negatively and then they get upset. Sometimes complaints get filed, ones that probably could have been avoided. Well the answer's pretty clear, the department is assigning new officers to a neighborhood that in the past had very contentious relations with officers going back over 30 years and these newer officers were going into that without any context or any history about what happened before they got there or hired by the department. That's not really fair to put newer officers in that situation of going into a situation without that "rehashed" history and it's not really constructive to do that either. After all, knowledge is power.

You can try to erase history, you can try to forget it, admonish people that you're not interested in rehashing it, but what you can't do, is change it and the impact, right or wrong that it has on its participants. But what you can do is educate the newer officers to understand it, so when they see that they're viewed negatively, they can place it in some context and be more open to changing the present so it doesn't match the past. And build something better between the community and those officers. That's how relationships improve over time by taking those initial steps, which is true in any type of similar situation.

But when new management people who's been here maybe two months are immediately dismissive then you know that the leadership they exert over their employees will be essentially the same way. Because the police department has its own history, both positive and negative to learn from and remember because it provides the context for what's taking place now that these new officers are walking into which maybe they should remember before being so dismissive. Waving their hand, shaking their head and saying none of that matters to be "rehashed" because after all, this is what they did in their respective agency. Which of course, has a much different reality and history than the police department in this city because all police agencies do. But I get a little bit wary when I hear the "we're not here to rehash history or even hear about it" from individuals who after are employed by the public they serve because that strongly hints at an unwillingness to learn especially when it comes from individuals who've been here such a short time.

And unless they know the history and understand it, and not throw their hands up over their faces and say they don't want to hear it, then they really have any meaningful impact on the police department or the communities it serves. They won't either if they are as dismissive and unwilling to learn the history of what's happened inside the department with their employees as well as in the city and its different neighborhoods. Vicino knows Pasadena and its police department very, very well. Diaz and Greer know Los Angeles and the LAPD very well. But guess what, this isn't LA, this isn't Pasadena, this is Riverside and they should be more focused integrating their wealth of knowledge into what's here, without saying well, this is how we did it in [insert name of police department]. That might work better in the communities as well because every time they do that, they're reminding people they're outsiders and why Riverside needed them. Because face it, if history were so peachy keen in River City, none of them would be here right now.

And that history and their understanding of it is going to be absolutely critical if they intend to develop and mentor the next generation of leaders in the police department including the next chief including important lessons learned on how NOT to do it.

Not too long ago, the city and department management were making the mistakes that they did from history drawn from just 10 years earlier. Allowing positions to go vacant including those in supervision and cutting the training budget. The outcome of those practices in the late 1990s was disastrous and the money "saved" there wound up costing the city over $26 million in mandated reforms and additional expenditures in settling or losing lawsuits filed both inhouse and outside the department. So bring new people in who don't want to "rehash" history because this is what happened in Pasadena or L.A. and continue onward from there to not examine the issues that caused great problems just 10 years ago (although Vicino thought 1-2 years was lightyears in the past). The city government still struggles with that because if police training budgets are being cut by at least 25% and the supervisory vacancy rates were 25-33%, then the city had no business paying over $30 million to buy a theater and pay one dime for its oversight which turned out to be fraught with problems and then be excited because they're $500,000 less in the financial hole than they anticipated (and anticipation of losing a couple shirts by people spending the public's money is a huge red flag right there).



The answers to many of these questions that were asked have been the same for years now. Department more reflective of the community it serves, increased accountability, fully staffed (civilian and sworn) and equipped and trained, quicker response times, more professionalism particularly in leadership, more traffic officers, better partnerships with organizations and communities and more community programs. Though it is still good to ask them and they did and are doing that but it remains to see what the responses will be not just from the department but from City Hall.

Because people have been asking for these things for years and the history is that unless forced to by some sort of court action, Riverside's City Hall action is to move slowly or not at all on some of the above issues. When left to its own devices (caution: "rehashing" history coming Vicino!) in the 1990s, the department's resources became depleted in staffing including in supervision and in equipment and training budget, all blamed on a recession. During this recession, vacancies were not filled, leaving vacancy rates as high as 33% in the lieutenant's rank, 25% in the sergeant's rank, 19% in the civilian rank and 10% overall. It was only through reminding the city government (which holds the purse strings of course) of its prior history and its very serious consequences by various parties which moved the city towards starting to address these vacancies. That's why some of them weren't as bad as they had been when these three gentlemen first arrived here. Because guess what, history does matter because it helps people from making the same mistakes over and over. You know what they say, if you don't remember your history, you're doomed to repeat it. That's a pretty accurate adage that's been proven time and time again.

That's why not many people show up at forums discussing the planning of their police department's future because they're not sure whether they're spitting in the wind or if anything will actually happen as a result of what they say, the questions they answer or the recommendation that they give. To change that skepticism, the department and the city will both have to show that they'll deliver on their promises to include input from the public in their blueprint for the road that the police department will be taking during the next five years. Many participated in the first round of public forums who are wondering what happened to the input that they provided, whether it will be included in the development of the final product.

After all, the Strategic Plan had already been written this spring during the time that Acting Chief John DeLaRosa had been in his position and after the Strategic Plan had been handed off by DeLaRosa to Deputy Chief Mike Blakely, the only member of Diaz' management team who didn't appear at the Eastside forum.


The department will be hosting the forums and came into the community centers as they will the college campuses (and if you want input from the "youth", it's usually more useful to go to them rather than have them come to you) and other locations this month which was a significant step to be recognized as something important, but there's still more to do to take that extra step of really paying attention to what people are saying. And there's not that sense quite yet that the management team has yet taken ownership of the Strategic Plan which they'll need so that the communities and the department's employees will buy into it. Vicino has the most history of the management team in terms of strategic planning and it would be interesting to see more of how he plans to apply that experience from over 20 years some place else to Riverside. That is if he ever realizes that he's the one that's got to do most of the learning and listening not the talking and the teaching city residents what they already know. That might take a while but it'll happen.

The only question is to what degree the "ouch" factor will be.


The management team told us there were "90 years" of law enforcement at the front of the room, again not counting Brennan's over 20 years with theirs and that's very impressive but they have shown us that there's still much they need to learn. And it's not as if there's not tremendous potential for that kind of communication between police leadership and community members, but it really has yet to be realized. Partly it's newness and unfamiliarity with the city's over 20 different neighborhoods, seven wards, four neighborhood policing centers and dozens of communities. But they stood up in front like teachers in a classroom of students who as far as their side of the police/community relations are concerned, are the experts like the police might be on their side of the equation. What they needed to do was sit in circles with people and turn it into a discussion of sharing ideas but of really listening as well. That worked better with the first round of community forums and much more discussion was generated in one of them than probably every forum conducted combined so far.

These three men are clearly intelligent, clearly have accomplishments in their respective agencies, ideas and issues that they're passionate about but when is anybody going to see that in a meaningful way? When are the steps going to be taken to institute real change in the Riverside Police Department, beginning with rebuilding its management culture into something much better than the ashes of it that remain? And what about the future, what steps are going to be taken to create the next generation of male and female leaders in the police department including the next police chief? Patience is definitely a requirement but so's vision.

One of them, probably Greer, said the purpose of mentorship was to great something so powerful to follow your footsteps that once you stepped away from your job, you ceased to really missed or remembered. That's a very unselfish philosophy because you're creating something that's not about you but what you did to make the next generation better than the one you lived through. But in actuality and practice what does that really mean? How does that apply to steps taken including through the vision of a strategic plan to turn that into reality?

Because that's a reality far different than the Riverside Police Department's known certainly in its most recent years.

That's the opposite direction of the police department that faced one of its turbulent years of its history because the management team from chief to captain along with management and elected leadership at City Hall put themselves first, they made it all about themselves so that the only legacy that philosophy led to was ashes. You had leadership that put itself first ahead of its communities it served and ahead of its subordinates who carry out its work. You had people doing whatever it took even destroying lifelong relationships to get promoted, knocking each other the ladder but that was the only way to get up that ladder. No one ever helped anyone else climb the ladder with them, but instead stomped the fingers of the hand of the person below them to get where they got which is one reason why there's such a huge gap between supervision and the top of management that is going to be difficult to bridge.

Sometimes people paired up to advance together by stabbing their leader in the back and then they got what they wanted, they started hating and not trusting each other because they knew that they were too close in parity in the hierarchy and what their former ally was capable of doing because if someone will stab someone else in the back with you, they'll do the same to you and that's what happened one former management employee did to another earlier this year when the latter let his guard down. Not long before the city management bought the keys to the department from their chief who others had hoped would fight back with a hefty salary increase.

That's your context. That's your history. Something akin to combining Shakespearean tragedies with Survivor Island. Erase that past, forget it, don't rehash it, pretend it didn't happen just because you're new, means you're doomed to repeat it. Everyone knows the end result of all that mess, which was three employees from two different law enforcement agencies coming into their management positions in this department.

It makes you wonder what the communication channels are like inside the very compartmentalized police department with a management level that had been decimated by its own vices and what was left, was severely fragmented and adrift from the rest of the agency. Greer has been attending several roll call sessions including one after the forum. Vicino's attended several rollcalls and Diaz did in July.

And Arrives in Orangecrest

[Deputy Chief Mike Blakely listens intently during the discussion at the forum.]




[Audience members listen as questions are asked by Vicino involving the Strategic Plan]



Another forum, which attracted about 10 people on a Saturday afternoon at the Orangecrest Community Center which was hosted by NPC East Lt. Vic Williams and Asst. Chief Chris Vicino. Chief Sergio Diaz and Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer were present along with Sgt. Jaybee Brennan and Capt. John Carpenter. Williams hosted and he introduced everyone including Brennan in his speech welcoming everyone to the event.

This forum was as interesting as the earlier one in a different way because there was this dynamic that unfolded that provided an even more interesting look at the management staff including Deputy Chief Mike Blakely who was present at this forum. There were some younger folks there, which was good because younger people don't tend to go to forums like these so it's often more successful to bring the information gathering process to them and their venues. Go to schools, maybe a briefer oversight of the strategic plan process and solicit input. It's a win-win. You have a captive audience and the teachers and schools can turn it into a school assignment, i.e. write about it for a social studies class for example.

Anyway, the issues focused on better response times which one gentleman said had improved in that area of the city from where they had been, more police presence, fair and equal treatment of people of different races and genders, more civilian vacancies filled and providing the department's dispatchers with a better and safer place to work.

Councilman Paul Davis suggested building a new police station for NPC East on some up for sale property from the Western Regional Water District which is on Alessandro near the entrance from Moreno Valley into Riverside. Diaz later said that he didn't believe that was necessary, new facilities cost too much money and there were other ways to allocate resources. But some how the sitaution involving the dispatchers raised by one former dispatcher got conflated into them asking for a new brick building because they weren't grateful enough to just be moved out of the basement of the Orange Street Station (presumably to Magnolia Policing Center after the whole Olivewood new site fell through). That was interesting to watch how they and civilian employees being restaffed was brushed aside (though Diaz seemed to believe that fillinig some vacancies was very important) because again, what gender is highly represented in both civilian employees and dispatchers? Oh never mind.

It's not really hard to get at least enough funding to rehire to fill civilian positions. They have to be sold as being necessary which many of them are, the jobs that they do that are taking longer to get done without them and why they're needed. And how ridiculous it is to have the vacancy rate be as high as 19% or even higher over the next five years covered by the Strategic Plan.

After all, Diaz himself said at the Eastside forum how often the words "budget cuts" are used simply as an excuse not to do something and he's right about that.

This forum was a lot of fun in its own way too, sparring with Vicino just to get one sentence out without him interrupting. But that's not what I went there to do, you just have to make the best out of what someone else brings and there's probably no woman on the planet that's ever not had this experience at least once with constantly being interrupted when we open our mouths to speak. Either people are really interested in receiving input or they're not and unfortunately, you get a sense that men are given more latitude than women in forums like these where the only female officer isn't even introduced properly along with the men. Just like police officers might recognize different communication dynamics among themselves at the different levels of rank and how they interact with each other, female civilians certainly do the same from their perspectives.

Having worked as an aide in early childhood schools when I was in high school, I have an infinite amount of patience with that type of verbal judo, not to mention being armed with Sgt. Dan Warren's terrific tactical communication course. This isn't a new situation being a female and watching the women get interrupted much more often in the past two forums than the men especially when they said something the department didn't want the rest of the forum to know, which is really why we're not allowed to talk about the past, even that which isn't really the past.

That's unfortunate but these three men are very bright men, so they'll learn pretty quickly. Of the three, Greer seems to be several steps ahead on that curve because he does really listen to what people say, he shares his own experiences without saying and he can wait until a speaker finishes a sentence. Diaz is getting better at doing that but there's still a sense that there's more to him than he presents on the surface but the surface is mostly what's been seen so far. Vicino is very personable, clearly intelligent and visionary but he needs to realize that there are many women out there that can do more than just being directed on how much to say when actually most women have better verbal communication skills than most men. Because he appears to understand that already about the men and there's plenty that both male and female community members and officers can teach him about this city and the Riverside Police Department.

Blakely didn't say very much at the forum but clearly enjoyed himself. The dynamic between the three members of Diaz' kitchen cabinet and him certainly was interesting and very educational to watch play out.


Correction to forums: There was several mentions of the city hiring 15 new police officers but actually the city's supposed to be hiring at least 27 new ones. Because there's the 15 from the COPS grant and also the 12 that were added when the city found several million dollars worth of surplus money behind a couple of the couches at City Hall. There was mention of the very high vacancy rate of civilian employees which stands at around 19%.

The situation involving cellular 911 calls being referred to the CHP office in San Bernardino County has been fixed. They are locally handled now and have been for several years which is probably one of the best improvements to take place in emergency response to calls for service. It's no fun watching one man assault another in the middle of University Avenue downtown on a holiday and two different witnesses calling for help are talking with the CHP in another county.

The original PowerPoint provided by Brennan in her presentations at the forums is available online on the April 2010 meeting of the Public Safety Committee under "reports". The formatting of reports has changed on the city's site and they do tend to load slowly if there's graphics on them.

Riverside Police Chief Holds House Warming Party

Over 150 police officers from the Riverside Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and other individuals attended a house warming party hosted by Chief Sergio Diaz about a week ago. Officers who were lieutenants and above from his new department were invited to attend with a guest and the turnout was very high from that portion of the agency that was on the invitee list. A lot of LAPD officers showed up as well and some local politicians.

Also invited to the party was current Riverside Police Officers' Association President Cliff Mason who's rumored to be seeking reelection next year. Thinking about facing him in that election are at least two candidates though the election is over a year away. He was the only member of the union board invited and speculation is whether or not he's looking for a higher rank once he becomes eligible to apply for it and has come quite some distance since his demotion only 18 months before his recent promotion back to sergeant.

In additions, former Asst. and Interim Chief John De La Rosa had been invited to the housewarming party sharing the same space with Capt. John Carpenter after some of his comments ruffled some feathers at a retirement party. It was interesting to see the clear ties that still exist between Diaz and the man he had show him the ropes in the police department when he arrived. But that was clear when Diaz made his first round of promotions in July as many of them were protogees of either DeLaRosa and his own mentor, Deputy Chief Mike Blakely.

It's good to see that the police chief is living in Riverside and people did seem to have a good time and enjoy the food.






[Former Riverside Police Department Asst. Chief John DeLaRosa appeared as a guest at a well-attended house warming party of his formerly for a brief period of time, boss.]





[Riverside Deputy Chief Mike Blakely (l.) hasn't been at the Strategic Plan forums so far but attended the chief's housewarming party. ]







[Riverside Police Captain John Carpenter apparently made some sort of peace with De La Rosa before both attended Diaz' housewarming party.]

San Bernardino City Attorney to Police Chief: Let's get ready to rumble...

The San Bernardino Police Department chief alleged that the city attorney threatened him. Were they going to brawl in the parking lot, the chief wondered.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

In a four-page memo to the city manager obtained by The Press-Enterprise, the police chief described Penman as "very direct and hostile" about discussing "numerous matters pending with his office."

Near the end of the meeting, Kilmer wrote, Penman walked toward the door of the room "saying that he was not done fighting.

"He looked toward me as I walked toward the exit," Kilmer wrote, "and he said something like 'I suggest if you want to continue to fight we go across the parking lot and do it.' I was shocked at what I thought I heard and asked, 'Mr. City Attorney, did you just challenge me to a fight?' "

Kilmer alleges that Penman then walked up "within inches of my face" and continued the discussion. Penman walked away moments later.

This all happens while the city's voters will decide on whether the city attorney should be appointed or elected. Jim Penman who's like been city attorney forever and embarrassed the city on numerous occasions, is the driving force for that voter initiative.



In Riverside, a neo-nazi runs for political office. Yes, well known National Socialist Movement member Jeff Hall has put in to run for office. Most of us remember him and his friends who staged several rather contentious rallies in Casa Blanca before fading into the woodwork.





[Riverside's Water Board candidate, Jeffrey Hall and some of his friends at a November 2009 rally in Casa Blanca standing behind several RPD officers working including many who wouldn't be welcome in the Nazi's version of America.]




Eight candidates vie for city council seats in Banning.

Public Meetings

Monday, Oct. 18 at 4 p.m. The Human Resources Board will be in deliberations on the grievance hearing regarding a human resources department's nonunion employee.


Tuesday, Oct. 19 at 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. The Riverside City Council will be hearing this agenda. This agenda item addresses the creation of the much heralded Charter Review Committee which will be beginning that process very soon.







On the heels of her brother, comes La Nina. Long story short, if the ridge builds, you get tropical rain. If the trade wins prevail, you get drought conditions.